Month: October 2019

It is common for agnostics and atheists to claim that religion just comforts believers. Often it means leaving one’s comfort zone. Personally, I left the comfort zone of a secure job to enter graduate school with the goal of using my knowledge of computers in God’s service. In practice this means in the service of our neighbors. Misioanaries leave the comfort of home for often dangerous work among people who are not exactly friendly.

What is dark matter? What is drk energy? We don’t know. Hypotheses of their nature have failed. The search is still going on, but it may take a while. All we really know is that something is making stars in galaxies move faster than they should, and something is causing the expansion of the universe to speed up instead of slowing down. These are the results of observation, not of experiment. We also observe “miracles,” events that appear to run counter to the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. We cannot dismiss observational evidence. Dark matter and dark energy are also the results of observation.
similarly, we observe miracles which seem to be due to the intgerdcession of particularly virtuous persons who have died. This is evidence that human beings somehow persist after the death of the body. Those who insist that the physical world is all there is dismiss evidence of miracles and life after death because it does not fit their frame of thought.

I have been angry with God for not making things a little easier. But this morning a little parable that I read somewhere popped into my mind.

A boy saw a cocoon pulsing violently as the butterfly inside tried to get out. Carefully he began to cut the cocon open with his pocketknife. His grandmother saw and drew close to watch. The cocoon was cut open without injuring the insect, but it was a por weak thihng. It was unable to fly and soon died. His grandmother explained that he had deprived it of the struggle it needed to gain strength.